Why yes, that is my son eating a snack off the kitchen floor.

Why do you ask?

I’m not going to sit here and pretend to be perfect at grammar. I’m not. Even though I was very good in English, reading, and writing in school, grammar tests always put me in a kerfluffle.

Why yes, I did just make up the word “kerfluffle”.

Oh, but I was an awesome speller! And vocabulary was my forte. I saved my sophomore year Honors English grade with vocabulary tests.

Anyway.

A lot of slang has crept into today’s language and become acceptable, even getting its own definitions in the dictionary. One of these words is “gonna”. I use that word a lot. I find, in writing, that using slang often conveys a point, a context, or a character much better than proper English. So I use slang. I do. I embrace it as part of our modern language.

But people, come on, spell the slang right. Please? I’m begging you. Respectfully.

I’ve seen multiple people on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, text messaging etc. use “gunna” instead of “gonna”.

“Gonna” is slang for “going to“. “Go” with an “O”. Not “Gu” with a “U”.

“Gonna”.

Not “gunna”.

Even my automatic spell-checker recognizes “gonna”!

So, if we’re “gonna” use slang, can we at least hold onto a shred of respect for the English language and spell it correctly?

Thank you.

*Not directed at any one person in particular. Just at the population at large. Not that anyone will take this seriously. I don’t expect anyone too. I’m just one measly blog in the pond.

…I overslept.

…the baby got a fat lip when his legs slid out from under him while he was crawling on the wood floor and he faceplanted.

…he’s okay, and the lip ceased to be fat very quickly. Though it was kinda cute while it was fat. After he stopped crying.

…the Husband worked from home.

…I curled my hair and put on red lipstick this afternoon. Because I wanted to.

…and because we went bowling for a friend’s birthday party tonight. Though I didn’t wear the red lipstick bowling. Switched to a nude lipgloss.

…my parents came over to watch Baby while we were out and said he was a complete and utter delight.

…my mom took advantage of my sizeable nail polish collection. My “Plum’s the Word” polish looks quite pretty on her toes.

…I got to eat chocolate cake from Whole Foods at the birthday party. Yes, I do not normally eat wheat and limit my sugar. But it was chocolate cake. FROM WHOLE FOODS. WHOLE FOODS.

…I’ll say it again: WHOLE FOODS.

…I’ll deal with whatever consequences erupt on my face. It was worth it.

…my face is actually doing quite well these days. Comparatively, anyway. I had a bit of a breakout last week but I’m pretty sure it was caused by hormones. It’s already clearing up.

…I didn’t accomplish much productive except a few loads of laundry. But I accomplished a lot the rest of the week so it’s not like there was too terribly much to accomplish today anyway. Days like this are nice.

…and now I think I’m going to go to bed. Or maybe I’ll surf the internet for a while. Perhaps I’ll look at shoes. I like shoes.

That’s all.

In about a week, people are going to think I’m Martha Stewart.

I’m really not. I just like to pretend to be. And I pray the entire time the results are edible.

Our kitchen is being invaded.

By things it has never seen before.

Things might get a bit messy. Things might get a bit crazy.

But goshdarnit, things are going to be FUN.

I get a bit nostalgic when it comes to baking gear. I’ve never been much of a baker, but I find myself being bitten by the baking bug (try saying that five times fast!) lately. I claimed much of my aunt’s bakeware from her kitchen when she passed away in 2009. She was our family baker and cook-at-large. I feel like I’m sort of growing into her shoes. Especially with the project I’m about to take on. I did inherit two round cake pans from her, but they’re rusting so while I will keep them because they remind me of her, I decided I should probably get a cake pan that wasn’t rusty.

I can’t wait to share the results with all of you! But you have to wait until next weekend. Because I haven’t made the results yet. So yeah.

I’m seeing a trend when a beloved public figure passes away. A trend that I have participated in, but a trend that today is disturbing me.

We talk about the person fondly, about the good things they did for society, how they will be remembered, etc. Phrases like “They’re in a better place” are frequently uttered, even by my fellow believers.

But are they? Really?

Jesus said “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Basically, the only way to eternal life after death is by accepting and knowing Jesus. Without that, what happens? Where does a person go when they die if they haven’t accepted Jesus?

It’s something we seem to try not to think about too deeply. Because it hurts. It grieves us. It pains us. It causes uncomfortable feelings in our hearts. One of the most painful things in the world is when someone you know has passed away, and a well-meaning person asks the question “Were they a Christian?” and you know they weren’t. So you give some nebulous answer, and then endure the most awkward split-second ever. And you know the person who asked the question has nothing but good intentions to comfort you, but your heart is pained even more. So you just shut down that compartment and try not to think about it. It’s easier to just be kind of numb to it than to add that aspect to the grief you’re already dealing with.

It’s the same – at least for me – when terrible things happen in the world. The current disaster in Japan, for example. I’ve found myself remaining rather emotionally detached from it, watching the news images and staying abreast on the latest facts, but I have deliberately skimmed over the human suffering portion of it.

Why?

Because it hurts too much.

A crack formed in my armor, though, when I saw a news bit about the children. The children who were at school that day, who managed to make it to higher ground in time to escape the tsunami, who returned to the school with their teachers when the waters receded to wait for someone to come and claim them.

Now, the schools are shelters for fellow survivors.

And a lot of the children are still waiting.

I can’t get those children out of my mind. I can’t imagine what they must be going through, trying so hard to cling to hope when each day a little more despondency creeps in. No electricity, no heat, no running water, no hot food, and no mommy or daddy to tell them everything is going to be okay and they’re going to be taken care of.

Those children are staying with me. I wish I could do something to help them. I wish I had a million dollars to donate. I wish I had some brilliant plan to get more aid to them. I wish I could pull them into my lap and share some of this motherly love flowing out of my heart with them. I wish…I wish…I wish…

All I can do, though, is pray.

Pray for those children and the others suffering in our world right now. Pray for all the people in this world who don’t know Jesus.

I’m not trying to go the “fire and brimstone” route of scaring people into becoming Christians. Rather, I’m speaking to my fellow believers today, asking us to let our hearts be affected by these things. Asking us to grieve with God over the lost and the suffering. Asking us to get down on their level and show them love and compassion in a practical and tangible way.

It’s uncomfortable. It hurts. But what is the alternative? To be numb? To never do anything for the Kingdom of God but write the occasional check?

That’s not the kind of faith I want to have. It’s hard to get out of my comfort zone – it goes against every grain in my body. But the alternative should be even more uncomfortable to us.

I know I’m not the only person who never gets tired of this story. I own it on film in two forms – the BBC version with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, and the newer one with Keira Knightley. I’ve watched both several times in the past couple of weeks, just to keep me company during the day if the house is too quiet and music alone isn’t cutting it. It just plays in the background while I do chores and what-not.

No matter how many times I see it, the story gets richer every time. I love watching the evolution of the relationship between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, as the layers of their characters begin to unfold and they begin to see each others true natures. I cheer a little bit at the end when they get together every time. I melt inside when Mr. Darcy goes to London in search of Elizabeth’s wayward sister. I give a little squeal of delight during the scene when Elizabeth is telling her sister Jane about her engagement to Mr. Darcy.

Yep, I’m a full-blown Pride & Prejudice nerd.

You’d think I’dve read the book. But I haven’t. I probably should.

I’ve passed quite a bit of time fantasizing about how if I could combine the two movies, it would make the most absolutely perfect chick-flick of all time. The character and story development of the BBC one, the production quality of the newer one, and a mixture of the actors.

But since that will probably never happen I’ll just have to content myself with watching both back-to-back on occasion.

I haven’t had too terribly much to write about lately. We’ve all gotten over being sick, though we are avoiding situations in which we could be exposed to illness. Which means we’re skipping church a lot. There’s a pattern emerging of the baby getting sick after going to the nursery at church, so we’re playing it safe. I don’t blame the nursery workers – I know they’re strict about sick babies. But babies have older siblings who bring germs home from school and other places. So round and round the cycle goes.

Speaking of the baby, he’s doing awesome. Crawling all over the place, babbling up a storm, and pulling himself up to stand on his knees. After a visit with a new little friend today, he has begun to show more interest in standing up all the way. It still has to be his idea, or he will have none of it. That’s his way of doing things – if it isn’t his idea, he’s not buyin’ it. I’ve talked about this with our pediatrician and she gets a kick out of it. Baby proved it with the crawling. I was all freaked out and feeling like a failure over the idea of doing physical therapy, and before we even had a chance to start, he just up and started crawling.

That’s why we’re not overly concerned about his vocabulary. He knows what things are – he can point to items in his picture books if we ask him to. And we’ve heard him say words. But then we get all excited and he refuses to do it again. Goober. One of these days I swear he’s going to look up at me and all of a sudden say “Oh Mother dear, may I please have some milk?” clear as day.

The dental work is going well. I had a small filling and a special sonic cleaning done on Monday. On April 4th I go in to get a crown on the tooth the did the root canal for. The root canal, incidentally, went great. As great as a root canal can go, I guess. But I’ve healed quickly and am now biding my time, being careful with the temporary filling.

That’s all for now. Husband is playing his favorite game online after a long evening of website design, and I’m just relaxing. With Pride & Prejudice in the background.

How did I ever survive for so many years without dental insurance?

Indeed, one of the first things I did after getting married and being added to my husband’s insurance policy was go to the dentist for the first time in years. I got my teeth cleaned – during which the hygienist complimented me on the condition of my teeth, which were way better than she had expected upon hearing how long it had been since my last dentist visit. I told her it was merely because I drank a lot of coffee and wanted white teeth! Anyway, that summer I also got three or four fillings and all four wisdom teeth out.

Oh, wisdom teeth. It’s either an ordeal or no big deal. Mine were no big deal. I went to the oral surgeon on a Friday so I’d have a long weekend to recuperate. Husband went with me – he’s always on hand for major medical events. As we were getting settled after checking in, the nurse asked me “Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry?” Huh? What? “Ice cream.”

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, at that office they send you home with a pint of ice cream! You’re supposed to eat some a couple hours after getting home to coat your stomach and then start taking your pain meds.

Anyway, they put me under, got my wisdom teeth out, woke me up and sent me home. My recovery went uneventfully. No chipmunk cheeks, no bruising, no dry socket. I did overdo it the next day and made myself sick. We were at my parents’ house for my brother’s birthday, when I started feeling kind of queasy. My mom says I turned white as a sheet all of a sudden, and she said “Do you need me to go get your husband?” (he was in the backyard with the other guys) and I just nodded pitifully. So home I went, not to stir from our apartment for the next few days, sacked out on the sofa with movies and soft foods.

That was not nearly my worst dental experience, though.

It was two years ago. I’d been experiencing some sensitivity on the left side of my mouth, but it was nonspecific. It came and went and seemed to move from tooth to tooth. I went to the dentist but they couldn’t figure out anything – my teeth were fine.

We flew to New England for a friend’s wedding that spring. While we were there, I started having this weird pain in the front left corner of my mouth. It wasn’t unbearable, just really annoying. So I bore it and got through the weekend with a little help from my good friend ibuprofen.

On the plane ride home, however, it got worse. It came in waves, each one more painful than the last, and each one lasting longer. Before long it was unbearable. No pain pill I could get my hands on would touch it. By the time we got into Denver around one in the morning it was so bad all I could do was lay down in the backseat of the car on my mother-in-law’s lap and cry (they had picked us up at the airport). Husband took me straight to the emergency room after dropping his parents off, where they gave me numbing shots and a prescription for Vicoden to get me through the rest of the night.

Incidentally, did you know they move very quickly at the Walgreens pharmacy when you come in with a Vicoden prescription at 3 in the morning?

My saint of a dentist (we were seeing a new dentist by then, having moved to the north end of town) got our message off her emergency line early in the morning and called right away, saying “Just come straight in – I’ll tell the staff you’re coming and we’ll squeeze you in.”

Again, they could find nothing wrong. X-rays and an exam turned up no answers. The pain was getting through the Vicoden very quickly by then. So I was loopy and in pain. It felt like hot needles were being driven through my teeth, into my face and my jaw. It was excruciating. I broke down and cried in the dentist’s chair. She began to suspect a TMJ issue, and so called a specialist, who got me in right away. We went straight there.

The specialist figured out that my unconscious habit of clenching my jaw – which I tended to do while I slept or was stressed – had caused my jaw muscles to spasm, which eventually pinched a nerve, which is what was causing the excruciating pain I was in. He quickly set about making me a device to wear on my front teeth at night to prevent the clenching, and sent me home to rest for a while before coming back late that afternoon to pick up my little tooth device. Husband and I had barely slept the night before and were practically falling asleep standing up.

When we went back to pick up my device (which I still wear while I sleep – I call it my “Cindy Lou Who” look), I suddenly got very ill. Strong painkillers do that to me, I figured, after my experience during my wisdom teeth recovery. After commandeering their bathroom for a few minutes, one of the nurses asked me “Are you sure you’re not pregnant?”

“No way! That would be impossible,” I insisted.

By the end of the month I was standing in my bathroom holding a positive pregnancy test.

I don’t know if I was pregnant at the very moment I tossed my cookies in that doctor’s office – either I was just barely pregnant or became pregnant very shortly thereafter. Funny timing, though, don’t you think?

So that is my dental reflection for the day. I compare any pain I’m in to the nerve pain in my jaw I experienced two years ago. It was, honest to goodness, the worst pain I’ve ever felt. There was no explanation, no end in sight, no remedy that gave me any relief. Those psychological factors make a huge difference. Even labor was less difficult by comparison, because with labor, I knew what was happening, I had coping methods to get through each contraction, and there was an end in sight. I knew I was going to get a baby out of it, and then it would be over. It was a welcome pain versus an unwelcome pain.

And the epidural helped too.

How do I pray for this, Lord?

It is a question I find myself asking rather often these days. Sometimes the Lord answers right away, sometimes He lets my heart soften for a while before answering, and sometimes He gives me a good ol’ smack upside the head to correct my own sins before telling me how He wants me to pray for a situation.

How do I, for example, pray for someone who I don’t like? Someone who has committed such a hurtful act against someone else I care about? What do I pray when everything in me except that still small voice is saying “It would be easier to just let it go”?

The situation – without going into too much detail, as I want to respect the privacy of those directly involved – is that among our circle of friends here locally, a spouse has left. Hurtful things have been said, angry words have been spoken, emotions have been poured out. A lot of us are reeling and grasping to make sense of everything while doing our best to be supportive.

For my part, I’ve felt fine with praying for the spouse who was left, but have had a hard time praying for the spouse who did the leaving. My heart has been hardened toward them. “You dug your grave, you made your choice” has been my attitude. I’ve deliberately directed my energy toward supporting the spouse who was left, and tearing down the spouse who did the leaving.

But the still, small voice persists. And today it is not quite as small, and not quite as still.

God’s asking me to open my heart to see His heart for this person, and to pray accordingly.

And that’s tough. Because beyond the fact that I don’t really like this person right now, feeling that nudge in my heart means I have sinned. I have given in to bitterness. I have not said anything untrue, and have striven not to spread malicious gossip (though I don’t know if I’ve succeeded in that aspect), but I have closed my eyes to God’s heart.

It’s a hard reckoning. Part of me – a very large part of me – feels like it would be so much easier to just let it go. Oh well, it’s ending, so sad, moving on. That would not require me to soften my heart, to pray the hard things, to open myself up to potential disappointment if this person chooses not to turn to God. I want to protect my heart, to hide it behind a shield of justification. But that is not what God would have me do.

So how does God want me to pray for this person? I first need to see this person through His eyes, which will require some prayer and some quiet listening. The one thing I know for sure is God’s heart breaks the same for the spouse who did the leaving as for the spouse who was left. So that’s where I’m starting. The rest, I hope God will reveal to me. It might be hard, I might end up disappointed, but all I can do is my part. It’s between me and God.

Give me eyes to see and ears to hear Your heart, Lord.

One major car repair + One root canal for me + Various other things I don’t have the brainpower to list = More than I care to think about and definitely staying in Colorado this summer.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I’m gettin’ a root canal.

I woke up yesterday morning with one of my teeth throbbing, so I hightailed it to the dentist today and the verdict is: root canal. Yippee. Dontcha just loooooove root canals?

So if our wish of going to California this summer for a friend’s wedding and to see our extended families wasn’t going to come true before, it sure isn’t going to come true now. We will definitely be staying within the borders of our own state until further notice.

So, in the interest of not letting myself become consumed by the mental image of the root canal, I’m going to play The Glad Game.

I’m glad we live in one of the most beautiful states in the country where we will have plenty to do this summer to get our vacation fix on the cheap.

I’m glad my husband has a job with good benefits.

I’m glad I have a roof over my head and food in my kitchen.

I’m glad I have a vehicle to drive myself and the baby around in.

I’m glad I have a huge stack of diapers nearby, since things have taken a turn for the poopier around here.

I’m glad my baby is healthy and growing and happy. And napping.

I’m glad I have good friends who can watch my baby when I have to make last-second trips to the dentist.

I’m glad I have lots of family nearby, who I will be hitting up for root canal babysitting soon.

I’m glad I have chocolate ice cream.

I’m glad I have God.

There. I’m happy now.

Who wants to babysit?

You’re welcome

Smoochin' Mama

I took the very last one – I think it’s the best picture we’ve ever had of the Bubbas. If I do say so myself.